A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stored value card. More particularly, the present invention relates to a value card device that poses as a gift while presenting itself as an easily accessible redemption medium for various point of sale systems. The present invention also applies to a store membership card that allows tracking of the customer activities and discount offers.
B. Discussion of Related Art
Stored value cards commonly referred to as Visa cards, gift cards, credit cards, debit cards or pre-paid cards in the retail market contain manually or electronically retrievable monetary values in them and are used as indirect payment methods between the issuing merchants and the customers in purchasing the merchant products/services. They are great for offering goods and services as gifts where cash exchanges are not preferred over thoughtful presentation of a value card, which also provides a range of freedom for the card holder to choose her or his desired item in the store that the card giver selected.
The values stored may be only a dollar or at any increments set by the issuer and agreed upon by the card customer who initially pays for the card value. So, the indistinctive shape of card may have one of a wide range of money amounts printed or written on an appropriate space of the card itself. Oftentimes, there is no monetary amount printed on the card. For example, the store membership card has no stored monetary value but carries the ongoing potential of getting various discounts when the member shopper present it at the cash register.
Unfortunately, when the stored value has been spent, the cards are normally tossed away because the actual card may have no value. This can be against the gift a givers' wish that their gestures be remembered along with what they gave, in this case the card itself. There have been efforts to provide more expressive stored value cards by individual merchants to promote such card transactions and increase sales. An improvement to the existing cards was to change the package adapted to hold the card in merchandising display at the stores into more attractive designs to transfer between individuals.
An improvement to the gift card suggested by the inventor in Stored Value Card With Light U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/038,018 is equipped with a light emitting diode, which is push-button activated to emit light combined with printed graphics. The previous improvement was successful in providing a form of electronic amusement through lights and sounds to otherwise flat gift card. The previous improvement had a first primary panel, a secondary primary panel spaced from the first primary panel. The first primary panel defines an account identifier signifying a financial accounting linked to the stored value card. Sidewalls are defined between the first primary panel and the second primary panel. The light circuit is located inside the housing and has a switch. The light extends from the sidewall of the housing and can be illuminated by pushing the push button switch. The message cards are found to work well as contemplated. In order to contain the electronic parts, that card device came to have a modified thickness of more than ¼″ compared to normal 0.30 mil of card as accepted by most magnetic card reading machines.
Therefore, the retrieval of stored value information was limited to a reading means of a bar code system. That is, the card has a bar code printed on it and scanned at the time of redemption by a cashier only with a barcode scanner. The equally important magnetic swipe readers in the stores could not access such card information due to the oversize sidewall dimension. It is, therefore, necessary to improve the card device to work with both point of sale or POS systems so that the value card devices can be adapted to almost all of the current POS systems that work with smart chip cards and magnetic swipe cards.
Being an electronic card device, the lighted stored value card has to be operated by the card owner to experience the amusing effect and added value. In its design, the card device is purely functional in a box shape offering little room for a visual appeal besides applying a custom graphics printed on the card surface, which is two-dimensional.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a working card device that is also a three-dimensional model with aesthetic value even if it is not loaded with stored value or purchase power. Such a card preferably lends itself to conventional card transaction systems whether account access is carried out through an optical bar code scanning or magnetic reading through a scanner slot.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a 3-D model with an integral stored value card in an aesthetically and functionally improved combination.
Embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings.